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Way off down the line…

Now that there are so many blogs out there, I often feel like trying to market to a group of people on the net can be pretty futile. It’s like there is just a bunch of whitenoise out there with everyone screaming throught their avatars, “Listen to my views on the President’s speech!” or “I just read this article and OMG I was ROLFLMAOing for hours!”

Or whatever.

Point is that there aren’t as many filters out there separating the wheat from the chaff (I hope I said that right; wouldn’t want to be one of those idiots who can’t write cliches worth a bell in the hay) as there used to. Self-publishing, Amazonian distribution, WordPress and Blogger are all there connecting and vocalizing people who used to be silent. That’s good for democracy, but what about for publsihing?

Well I think at first it seems a little scary. Presses closing around us remind us that the old business model of middlemanning the book to death is not sustainable. For too long the focus in the publishing world has been on profits. Not to get all hippy on you or anything, but that just turns books into money and it can be a disservice to your readers and your authors.

Most of us didn’t start working towards publishing degrees for the money. I don’t think too many people honestly think there is a lot of money to be made out there in this line of work. Then why do we do it?

They speak to us from somewhere above and beyond money. People read books, not because it’s the cheapest form of entertainment, but because they hear the call, too. So out of respect for our mutual love of the words in the pages, it is our responsibility to respect the transcendent art of the book. Design it, not from a perspective of, “Will this make people buy it?” but, “Will they like it?” and “Does it add to the words?”

If you maintain priorities on quality and vision, you can cultivate that dedication to your craft. If there are tons more people flooding Amazon’s virtual doors, then there are tons more people out there who will rely on you for a quality product, and you can go on developing your mutually beneficial relationship of reader and publisher.